Down with imperialist war and Trump's authoritarian campaign! | International statement

Down with imperialist war and Trump's authoritarian campaign!

International statement

The current offensive by Donald Trump's government in Latin America, which so far has reached its peak with the bombing and commando attack against Venezuela and the overthrow and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd, represents a leap forward in the belligerence of US imperialism, both in its imperialist adventurism and in its internal repression. We are seeing a qualitative change in the political regime with developing fascist tendencies, in which the deployment of the National Guard to multiple cities has been complemented by the far-right militias that were at the forefront of the 2021 Capitol attack, which have been reconverted into a federal force and given a large budget, in the form of the federal ICE force, Trump's quasi-fascist paramilitary attack force.
 
The combination of internal militarization, the search for political conditions to launch military adventures and mobilize workers en masse as an army, and the promise of economic well-being based on the oppression of internal and external enemies are the intimate connection between the elements of this authoritarian project that seeks to halt the decline of the United States as an imperialist power. The breakdown of postwar alliances, as well as the fall of the dollar and US, European, and Japanese debt bonds, are dramatic expressions of a crisis not only of the capitalist economy but also of the imperialist order of world domination.

The Trump regime is seeking to regain dominance by imperialist military attacks that force countries to break off trade with China, it’s chief rival and to demand that other countries around the world continue to put tariffs on China trade.

The claims of “fighting drug trafficking” or “fighting for democracy” behind the attack on Venezuela have all been quickly abandoned. As he explained in his National Security and Defense strategy, Trump is concentrating forces immediately in his attempt to dominate Latin America militarily and economically, while maintaining his sights on confrontation with his strategic adversary China, trying to split off Russia from China at least as a short-term policy, and also clashing more and more with Europe. His “focus on the American continent” does not rule out political and military operations from Greenland to Ukraine, from the Middle East to the South China Sea.

The offensive in Latin America, which includes threats to multiple countries, the opening of new military bases and the deployment of troops, as well as interference in local elections, has already claimed several hundred lives, from the sunken boats to Caracas to the attacks in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, coordinated with this political offensive. One strategic objective is to break the Cuban state, whose blockade has been dramatically tightened. We declare our solidarity with the Cuban people. The attempt to overthrow the  government in Havana not only aims to overthrow all remaining social conquests of the revolution of 1959, but to advance in imperialist control of the region. It is the duty of internationalist revolutionaries to defend Cuba against the restoration of the informal status of US colony that the island had before the revolution.

This offensive to control the continent has not been confronted by the governments of the region, nor by its traditional political forces. The right  wing has welcomed the offensive, even though it was ridiculed when its favorite, Corina Machado, the Nobel laureate in requests for foreign military invasion, was dismissed as a government figure by Trump in Venezuela. Nationalists and center-leftists reject it in words, but their governments seek to appease Trump through all kinds of concessions and calls for joint action. They have avoided a process of mobilization against the US attack, after decades of demagoguery about the unity of the peoples. The heart of the capitulation is in Caracas, where the new government has adapted to Trump's impositions, even reforming its oil law to comply with US demands.

In opposition to this line of capitulation, we call for the organization and mobilization of Latin American workers and peoples to confront the imperialist presence in the region. The reformist left that proposes we follow these governments leads us down a dead-end path. The allies of the Latin American masses are the workers of the US, Europe, and the world.

In response to this offensive, hundreds of thousands of workers are becoming radicalized and, in particular, there is a renewed enthusiasm for the general strike, which made headlines with the days of action in France and Italy and, more recently, with the general strikes in Portugal, Bolivia, and Belgium. The demands have been diverse, but opposition to the Palestinian genocide, repressive domestic measures, and austerity policies and regressive labor reforms all pose a common need to confront the capitalist offensive that seeks to unload the crisis onto the backs of workers.

It is this path of struggle that young people, the immigrant workers’ communities, and American workers have taken, in the very bowels of the monster, against Trump's xenophobic and fascist patrol, ICE, using mobilization, strikes, and self-defense. This path challenges the Democratic Party's approach of semi-collaboration and semi-opposition, which seeks to capitalize on hatred of Trump in the November elections, while Trump moves forward with the open militarization of his country, including public executions and concentration camps.

The general strike and direct action are the tools taken into their hands by thousands to break the offensive of the millionaire president, the defeat of which would also be a victory for all workers around the world.

The struggle for a working class united front against the Trump regime is a critical task in the United States and the formation of a mass working class political party with a program to put the working class in control of the economy.

The need for a working class united defense against martial law and the imposition of military control is on the agenda and the Trump  government is threatening to eliminate democratic bourgeois elections.

The internal struggle in the US capitalist class is strengthening the working class as workers see the real nature of the capitalist class, including the sexual corruption scandal involving billionaires of both political parties and the capitalist class as a whole.

The crisis and the trend towards war

Trump's plans exacerbate inter-imperialist tensions and global disputes. The agreements reached around Greenland, which are a partial advance of Trump's demands, do not rule out the growing attempts by the European imperialist bourgeoisie to gather the economic, military, and political elements to confront Trump's impositions, as well as to explore their own agreements with China, India, or Mercosur. Canada has moved in the same direction. The recent Davos Forum was a demonstration of the extreme nature of these tensions, with NATO facing a possible split, threats of troop mobilization, and economic attacks used as weapons in the fight.
 
The freezing of the EU-Mercosur agreement after it was signed is evidence of the contradictions within the European Union itself, due to the clash of conflicting agrarian and industrial capitalist interests. We reject this EU-Mercosur agreement, an aggressive capitalist restructuring in favour of the industrial and agri-food monopolies. The agreement will be used as a pretext by the bourgeoisie and governments of the EU and Mercosur countries to advance the liquidation of labor rights, promote a stronger competition for jobs between workers of each country to lower wages, devastating poor farmers, harming the environment and the quality of food, under the argument of “competitiveness”. It is an attempt by the EU  to upgrade its role by strengthening its position in the competition with the US and China, at the expense of the peoples of Latin America, intensifying the historical sacking of the riches of their lands. We stand for working class unity of struggle across borders, against both international and national capital, and oppose both the protectionist and the free trade factions of capital.  

The divisions between the United States and the European Union extend to the war in Ukraine, which is about to enter its fourth year. Discussions are underway regarding so-called “security guarantees” and the division of territory and spheres of influence between Russia, US and European imperialisms. We reject the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine, but also the prospect of an “imperialist peace” based on the plunder of the Ukrainian people. The people of Ukraine, as well as the Kurds, must draw profound conclusions regarding the leftist advisors who propose that they align themselves with western imperialisms in the name of a supposed “national defense,” which has proven to be the worst of catastrophes and subjugation. We call on the workers of Ukraine and Russia to fraternize with each other and to confront the war-mongering governments in their own countries.

The blocs of inter-imperialist confrontation are not stable; rather, we are repeatedly witnessing new shifts and realignments. The underlying reason for the tendencies toward war is the crisis of the capitalist system as a whole. An agreement in Ukraine, which is still uncertain today, would not dispel the underlying tendencies inherent in the global situation. This is particularly true for the temporary trade truce reached by the United States and China.

The massive speculative capitalist bubble in the US around AI and data centers along with the US deregulation of the banks and crypto currency is setting the stage for a massive economic collapse greater than 2008 and will require the working class to prepare for workers control of the US and world economy.

The race to increase military spending goes hand in hand with cuts to social spending and attacks on working conditions and pensions. Several European governments are pushing for the reinstatement of military service, which was met with massive protests and student strikes in Germany, with students declaring: “We don't want to be cannon fodder.” The shift to the right and advance of fascism promoted by multiple capitalist sectors is not an ideological fad, but is linked to attempts to defeat the working class, destroy its gains, and use it as cannon fodder.
 
The imperialist bourgeoisie offers the masses only hunger and war. The workers of the world must rise up against this bleak prospect.

Middle East

We reject Trump's misnamed “peace board”, which is, in truth, a colonial protectorate over the Gaza Strip. With the consent of all capitalist governments, including the Arab bourgeoisies, it has been agreed to establish an international occupation force, while seeking to dismantle the Palestinian resistance and deprive the inhabitants of Gaza of the basic right to elect their own rulers. Not only are they seeking to set up an obscene business scheme around the reconstruction of the coastal territory they have destroyed in a genocidal action, but it is also part of a plan to reorganize the region in view of the world war that is being prepared, which has included the Zionist offensive against six countries in the region, the advance of colonization in the West Bank, and support for the jihadist regime in Syria, which some supposed leftists hailed as a democratic revolution and which today is carrying out a massacre against the Kurdish people and other minorities.
 
We support the mass uprisings in Iran that erupted in late December against the severe deterioration in popular living conditions and against the capitalist-ayatollah regime as such, and we condemn the regime's criminal repression. At the same time, we condemn the US military deployment in the area and attempts to exploit the popular uprising for the interests of imperialism. Only the exploited masses can overcome the reactionary regimes that plague the region, as demonstrated by the reactionary solutions that the local bourgeoisies and imperialisms imposed on the Arab Spring uprisings.

The struggle against genocide in Palestine, the invasion of Venezuela, forced conscription and the war economy in Europe, and fascist raids against immigrants in Minnesota are all part of a single international struggle by the working class against escalating imperialist war and the governments that promote it.

We say:

• Down with Trump's imperialist offensive in Latin America and the Middle East.
• For Working Class United Fronts and General Strikes Against repression and attacks on the working class in every country of the world.
• Long live the struggle of the people of United States against ICE and Trump, in Minneapolis and other US cities.
• No to the genocide of the Palestinian people and Trump's colonial junta.
• For the right to self-determination of the Palestinian and Kurdish peoples. For a single, secular, and socialist Palestine. For a socialist federation of the Middle East.
• No to imperialist military intervention in Iran.
• We denounce the fierce repression of the Ayatollah regime and support the mass movements of the Iranian people.
• We stand in international solidarity with all oppressed identities subjected to ethnic cleansing in Syria, supporting their demand to live freely and equally in their own lands.
• Down with imperialist war, war budgets, and their governments.
• For workers' and revolutionary parties around the world.
• For a workers’ international.

We call for organizing actions of struggle in as many cities as possible under these slogans on February 28, marking four years of continuous inter-imperialist war in Ukraine, and for holding an online meeting of internationalist forces in early March to advance the organization of a larger joint campaign against imperialist war.

First signatories:

KA – Communist Liberation (Greece)

PO – Workers Party (Argentina)

SEP – Socialist Workers Party (Turkey)

TIR – Revolutionary Internationalist Tendency (Italy)

SWP – Socialist Workers Party (Great Britain)

UFCLP- United Front Committee for a Labor Party (US)

WCP-H – Workers Communist Party of Iran- Hekmatist (Iran)

Marx21 (Spanish State)

Fuerza 18 de Octubre (Chile)

GAR – Revolutionary Action Group (Mexico)

DSIP – Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (Turkey)